A column on the Canadian website The Curling News (a publication that has covered curling in various forms since 1957) is about Canadian elite curler Michael Fournier launching a fierce attack against Oskar Eriksson and the Swedish team, which was first reported by Aftonbladet.
Fournier writes that he has been involved in curling for a long time, but believes that Marc Kennedy, the player at the center of the controversy, did not influence the ball’s trajectory by touching it after it was released.
“There is no way to affect the stone by touching the back of it after releasing the handle. So why does anyone care?” Fournier writes.
He impliesjust like Kennedy in an interview with DN that there was a conspiracy against Canada.
“Strangely, the Swedes appear to have deployed a mysterious Zapruder-like figure in the stands who captured high-definition side-angle video showing Kennedy dropping the stone,” he writes.
Abraham Zapruder was the man who accidentally managed to film the assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy in Dallas. The footage showing Canadian curler Marc Kennedy touching the stone was captured by SVT.
“All I see in this video is that his hand/finger is very close to the back of the rock. Is he touching it? I have no idea. Does it matter. Not one bit,” Fournier writes.
Then he leaves to a tough attack against the Swedish vice-captain Oskar Eriksson.
– You just don’t accuse someone like Marc Kennedy of cheating, especially on television, at the Olympics. You just don’t do that. And Oskar, if you don’t understand why you shouldn’t do it, you don’t deserve the fame that our sport has brought you,” writes Fournier, saying that Eriksson should be ashamed.
Fournier also writes that he himself was accused of fraud ten years ago by Oskar Eriksson.
Eriksson was preparing for Sweden’s Olympic game against Germany on Tuesday and could not be reached for comment. Sweden national team captain Fredrik Lindberg doesn’t believe there is much to say about Fournier’s allegations.
– That’s excessive for us. “I think we are right in terms of content and then we would rather concentrate on curling,” says Lindberg.
The Swedish captain Niklas Edin commented earlier this week on the claim that a finger on the stone cannot influence the path of the stone.
– Those of us who practice this sport know that just a few grams of pressure can change speed. It’s about centimeters and millimeters, and when you’re in a few grams you don’t see much, but a 95 percent stone becomes 100 percent, Edin said.
